Secure Traceability – Requirements Analysis with objectiF

The more precise your requirements are, the surer you can be of avoiding any risks or unpleasant surprises when you introduce the system later on. And with automatically maintained relationships between user requirements and the object-oriented model, you are well equipped for the continual maintenance, adaptation and extension of an application.

For this, You Need More Than Just Symbols

The UML tool objectiF supports you with everything you need for thorough and traceable requirements analysis:

The Communication Between Use Cases and Actors Is Made Visible with objectiF

With use case diagrams, the UML provides an efficient communication instrument for determining and formulating requirements. You can create communication relationships between actors and use cases as well as includes and extending relationships and generalizations between use cases in the diagrams with your mouse.

Relationships between actors and use cases are modeled in use case diagrams: An actor is represented graphically by a rectangular icon which contains a stick figure and the actor's name. Use cases are symbolized by oval elements, labeled with their names. Communication relationships are visualized by black double arrows.
You get from the description to the design fast with objectiF

Use cases, actors and use case diagrams aren't always enough when it comes to analyzing an application's requirements in the required amount of detail. This is why objectiF also offers the additional possibility of creating a textual description for every element in a use case diagram. objectiF includes a prestructured template in MS Word format for these descriptions. And you can rest assured that the connection between the element and its description is saved in the system just as safely as the element itself.

You can also use the description of the use cases to lay a foundation for design: If terms materialize in the description which would be just right for classes of the application design, then you can define the first classes of you model right away – even if the design phase hasn't started yet. That's what the button Create Class in the objectiF toolbar is for. Back in objectiF, you can specify the relationships between these classes in a class diagram and start implementing.

Here's how you get from a description to a class: Select the class candidate and click Create Class. Afterwards you just need to specify the target package.

The User Interface Comes to Life Before Coding with objectiF

Use cases are made especially clear for your customers when they're able to try out the look and feel of the user interface in a prototype. objectiF offers you two kinds of prototyping: prototyping with an Internet browser and prototyping with MS Visual Studio .NET. If you opt for a web-based prototype, simply use objectiF's ScreenPainter.

Especially attractive for .NET users: All of the classes created during prototyping can also be used during real implementation. Dialogs and user interface classes can be assigned to use cases and activities. You can easily establish series of dialogs without a lot of time spent programming. As soon as the interface has been accepted by your customer, simply integrate the prototype into your real application. The assignment of the user interface classes to the use cases and activities is automatically maintained. This is one way which objectiF takes care of traceability from the requirements to the code.

From a use case to a “clickable" prototype: Assign dialogs to your use cases from within a use case diagram.

You Can Visualize the Details of Your Uses Cases in Activity Diagrams with objectiF

If a use case's complexity exceeds the boundaries of textual description or can be specified by the generation of an interface prototype, you can model the details in an activity diagram. Define who's responsible for carrying out an activity with swimlanes. You can assign swimlanes to a class, package or actor. objectiF automatically keeps your assignments consistent.

An Activity Diagram in objectiF: You can describe the flow of the activities of a use case via activities, transitions, decision and synch bars and object flows.

Build a Bridge Between Analysis and Design with objectiF

The use cases defined during requirements analysis are the starting point of object-oriented development with objectiF. In general, several classes can be derived from a single use case. With objectiF, you can represent these classes together with their relationships in one or more class diagrams. Starting with a use case, relationships to a class diagram can be created so you always know which classes came from which use case.

You can assign a class diagram to a use case with the menu heading Class Diagrams/Assign Class Diagram from a use case's context menu. The menu command References shows you which use cases are contained in a class diagram.

Do the objects of the found class really solve the business domain task described by the use case? You can create sequence diagrams for a use case in order to answer this question.

You can graphically represent the chronological flow of a use case's tasks in a sequence diagram.

Traceability: From the Start of a Project to a Finished Application with objectiF

Where does a class come from? Which classes implement a particular use case? With objectiF, you create a connection between the results of requirements analysis and the design results which is then maintained automatically. This connection is of central importance for the continued maintenance, adaptation and extension of the application. If you decide to change an application's use cases, for example, objectiF makes it easy to understand which classes, class diagrams and sequence diagrams will be affected. Your design decisions always remain traceable from use case to code with objectiF. And you can conveniently navigate between the results of requirements analysis and the results of object-oriented modeling. That saves time and improves the quality of your results.

Why not give code generation with objectiF a try: Simply design a class diagram with a few classes and transfer the generated code to Visual Studio .NET or Eclipse. The functionally complete Personal Edition of objectiF which can be used for an unlimited period of time is available for you to download here:

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